


be still (scream it louder)

by gemiinous



Series: bonding moments in space [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Mental Health Issues, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Panic Attacks, Trans Lance (Voltron), VLDgen, actual frat-boy takashi shirogane, i only write happy endings, im so sorry, save these small space children, there be shitstorms ahead y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-09
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-10-29 20:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10861131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gemiinous/pseuds/gemiinous
Summary: "Just once, I want someone to take what I say at face value," said Lance, the crack in his voice impossible to ignore. "I want people to look at me and not think I'm stupid, or a novelty, or..or something to be pitied.""Just once, I want people to WANT me around, and not just have to deal with me."-OR-The one where Lance does have feelings, no really, he does, and bottling them up can lead to dire consequences.





	1. In Which Eavesdropping is an Unattractive Hobby, and Pidge is Always Right

**Author's Note:**

> Set after "The Wallflower Code"
> 
> no actual self-harm, just ideation and references to past self-harm

It started with a slip of the hand, like most cataclysmic events were wont to do. A slip of the hand, a private moment overheard, and too many questions asked in just the wrong way.

Voltron was a messy scramble of seven people who barely knew each other, and it was so, so easy to fall apart The thing about secrets, no matter how carefully they are kept, is that they always, _always_ come to light eventually. Living in a spaceship with only six other people and four mice to keep you company somehow only accelerates the process.

At first glance, one wouldn’t think that Lance Espinosa was the type to keep secrets. He was boyish immaturity at its finest, with bright laughter and brighter humour. He wore his heart on his sleeve, in all aspects of the phrase, and he was so genuinely friendly that it was very, very unlikely for someone to look past the surface.

Lance had a lot of secrets. Everything from the fact that on Earth he still slept with a stuffed whale he won in a raffle when he was five, to the crippling insecurity and doubt that plagued him daily.

The thing was, Lance was used to being ignored.

It came with being the middle child of a big family, always shunted to the side, always talked over, always in the way or needed to help keep some kind of order. It came from being too loud and too talkative, easily entertained and yet impossible to keep busy, so much that it was literally always easier to just tune him out and let him ramble himself into complacency. It came from being the prankster of the classroom, the one with no depths, the side character with a vacant smile and a pat on the back ready for every other person who meant so much more.

It came from being different, from having ‘so many issues’--jeez Lance, can’t you leave some drama for everyone else--from having ADHD and being transgender and, on top of it all, being just so very insecure.

Lance was used to being ignored, so he was also used to shouting as loud as he could, desperately trying to be heard, to make an impact, to do something right for once and not be the cause of more and more stress. He was the drama machine, after all. The catalyst, the one who shouted the loudest and raised all of the fists in the room, only to have them all come crashing down upon him. But that crash was recognition, if only for a moment.

Lance was used to being ignored.

So when, quite suddenly, he found himself one of seven instead of one of three hundred, he had no idea how to cope.

He over compensated. That’s just how he survived.

If he was loud and brash, they would call him obnoxious and annoying, yes, but they wouldn’t look any deeper. If he spoke too fast because ritalin had never worked like he wanted it to and even if it had, it would be back on Earth, no one had to pay attention to the bullshit he was spouting. If he put his all into training and bounced up as quickly as possible, always trying to put out the most energy and enthusiasm of the team, they would roll their eyes at him and tell him to ‘chill out, Lance’, but they wouldn’t notice the buzzing beneath his skin or the restless tapping of his foot or the way it was all too much, sometimes, and he just wanted to scream until it all went away.

If he played the idiot, if he played the ladies man, if he exaggerated it all like he always had to, then no one would expect him to be better. And if no one expected him to be better..

Lance couldn’t disappoint them.

All of that had changed when he had come out to Pidge, and had, in turn, helped them come to terms with their own self. Suddenly Pidge was looking to him for advice, even if their eyes turned to him last out of all of the Paladins. Suddenly Pidge was watching the curve of his lips when he smiled too wide, or the twitching of his fingers as he crossed his arms and held himself so, so still, as if he could make all of the need to _move_ go away. Suddenly Pidge was watching his vacant expressions, and the way his face would fall, unnoticed to anyone else, as his mind drifted off mid-mission briefing and he was left scrambling and hazy.

Suddenly, there was a new tremor of anxiety beneath Lance’s skin, one that made him want to tear at his flesh with his nails and slap all of the awful buzzing away until he could feel nothing, _nothing_ but his own mind, silent for once.

It was wishful thinking.

So he tried to ignore it. For a while, it seemed to work. He cracked jokes that made the team groan in irritation, and pretended that he didn’t want just _one_ of them to laugh, just once. He stumbled over his words, getting them wrong and mixed up in his head as his tongue moved too slowly for his brain and his Spanish and English smushed together in a jumble and came out wrong, wrong, _why was he so stupid_.

The fuzzy film of depression that came over him wasn’t exactly new, but it was very, very unappreciated.

It was withdrawal, he told himself, curled up on his bed and holding his stomach as nausea roiled within him and his mind became a scrambled mess. His hormones were trying to balance out, and the only reason he was having a harder time than Pidge was because he’d been on hormone replacement therapy for longer than them. He had already gone to Coran, as quietly as he could, and begged him to find a replacement for it.

Coran had agreed, confused by human biology but impossibly fond, and that had eased some of Lance’s worries for a time.

But secrets were meant to be uncovered, and Lance knew that he was walking on thin ice as it was. It was hard to keep things from people who you shared a mind and body with on a regular basis, after all.

It was even harder to keep things from people who you cared about.

\--

“You’re doing it again.”

Lance sighed, a rough, exhausted sound that didn’t suit him at all, but was happening more and more often. It was a bad day. It had been a bad week, really, but today every sound was too loud and overwhelming, every touch to his skin felt like he had run a round with the invisible maze. He felt too big for his skin, too wrong, like everything about him was rebelling even more than usual.

Behind him, Pidge was frowning in the type of sibling-like disapproval that was always the most effective on Lance. It was like they were using their ‘little sister’ status against him, but really, Lance couldn’t find it in himself to complain.

“Doing what,” he said tersely, adjusting the arm bracers of his Paladin armour and refusing to make eye contact. He knew exactly what Pidge was referring to, he just didn’t care. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Bull _shit_ ,” Pidge spat, though there was very little venom in their voice. They just sounded concerned, and that ate at Lance more than any anger ever would. “You’re training with your binder on again; don’t think that I didn’t notice! You’re wearing your armour, Lance, and that’s good enough for compression. What’s the point? You’re gonna puke up a lung or break a rib or something.”

Lance snorted, shifting on the spot and tapping a nervous rhythm on his hip just above his bayard, both trigger-happy and anxious all at once. The thing about always being ignored, even in a big family, is that you never quite get enough practice bending the truth. “Hah, yeah right. As if the great blue paladin would ever do something as dumb as--”

“Oh come off it, Leandro.”

Lance twitched violently, then turned to scowl at Pidge, who was slowly levelling him with a triumphant sneer. “Where did you--”

“Leandro Alejandro Núñez Cuesta Espinosa.” Pidge sang with slightly stilted pronunciation, poking Lance hard at the un-armoured section of his uniform, right under his ribs. He squirmed away from their probing touch, biting back a squeal. “Don’t be a dumbass, Leandro. What would your mother think, Leandro.”

“Would you stop doing that?” Lance complained, squinting and shimmying to the side in discomfort. “It feels like someone is walking over my grave. This isn’t the Garrison, you can’t go spilling the Full Name like you’re gonna go all Iverson on me. Where did you even learn that?”

“It gets around; you do get yelled at an awful lot. The halls of the Garrison were kinda echo-y. Plus, it’s clever.”

“Oh, ha ha. Nice one, Holterson. Real spiffy detective work there.”

That made Pidge snort out a laugh, and Lance congratulated himself on successfully diverting the topic. “Holterson? _Spiffy?_ ”

“What can I say?” he boasted, slipping past them towards the main doors of the training deck. “I’m a man of many words.”

“Yeah, it’s getting you to shut up that’s the problem.”

“Your Shrek references, they wound me.”

Pidge just smirked, all sharp edges and boundless wit.

When they finally entered the training room, the rest of the team were already there waiting for them. Keith looked impatient, his lips pressed in a tight scowl and his arms crossed as they usually were. He had always hated it whenever one of them broke routine, and Lance was the one to most frequently do so. Pissing off Keith was one of his fondest pastimes, after all.

“Oh, hey Lance, Pidge,” Hunk said distractedly, shooting them a honey-warm grin. He was busy waving enthusiastically up at Coran, who seemed to be making elaborate hand gestures from up in the observation room. Goodness only knew what he was trying to communicate, or why he hadn’t turned on the intercom. Though, knowing Coran, he was getting as much amusement out of watching Hunk flail as Hunk was getting from him.

Shiro, ever the peacemaker, just smiled that billion-watt smile that was becoming more and more rare the longer they stayed up in space. “All set, you two?”

It hurt Lance’s heart in the strangest way to see, but it also gave him a steady goal to think on whenever he felt like he was drifting away. ‘Save the Universe’ was a bit too hard to focus on, sometimes, especially in the wake of the millions of lives they were affecting with every choice they, as Voltron, made. ‘Make Shiro Smile’ was a task nearly as difficult, but it was far easier to hold in one’s hands and make a reality.

So Lance beamed back, snapping a sharp salute to his commanding officer and pairing it with a saucy wink. “For you, Shiro, I’m always ready to go.”

Shiro immediately rolled his eyes, but when the smile on his lips morphed into a quiet smirk, Lance considered it a job well done. Hunk snorted into his hand, bless him and his constant support, and Keith only scowled harder. That was a bonus.

“Lance, ew. Can’t you contain the gay for, like, two minutes?” Pidge complained, but they were smiling fondly. “We haven’t even started drills, yet.”

Lance gasped in faux-insult, a hand flying to his chest. “Pidgeon! How dare you insinuate such an awful, discriminatory thing. I am _bi_ sexual, thank you very much. Guys, gals, and alien-pals are all welcome to my--”

“OKAY then,” Shiro cut in quickly, coughing to dispel any lingering amusement. “Good thing we’re all set, because we have a busy day ahead of us.”

\---

Something exploded, shaking the walls surrounding the kitchen and shattering the quiet of the night-cycle.

“Oh, oh my god, Keith, I am so sorry are you okay?”

Lance froze just outside of the doorway, slinking back quickly in a sudden burst of anxiety at Hunk’s startled shout. He sounded panicked, but something inside of Lance rebelled at the idea of running in just to have Keith shout at him.

No thank you, no siree, he had just come down for a midnight snack and was not feeling up to any verbal sparring right now. Plus, explosions made him nervous, even ones caused by cooking malfunctions.

“Yeah,” Keith was saying, his voice rough and shaking. “Just, u-uh..water. Now.”

Lance held back a snicker as Hunk shouted a wordless noise of assent, leaning back against the wall and tugging his jacket carefully around himself so as to make no sound. So he was eavesdropping. Sue him. Hunk did that and worse all the time, and everyone loved him. Then again, a traitorous voice whispered, everyone loved Hunk regardless. How could he even begin to live up to someone made up of literal sunshine?

Speaking of Hunk, he sounded even more panicked and just on the edge of hysteria when he said abruptly, “Oh god, Keith, I think it might be corrosive--”

Keith made a hilarious squawking noise, and yup, Lance didn’t care if they caught him now and enlisted him in helping with the cleanup. This was comedy gold. He peeked around the doorway, finding it halfway propped open by one of the chairs from the dining room, and had to stifle a snort and the sight of Keith Gyeong covered from the arms up in a red-orange slime that might have been an attempt at something spicy.

Shame, that. Lance was in desperate need of something with actual flavour to it, instead of countless bland meals of goo, goo, and more goo.

“Fuck, _fuck!_ ”

The liquid was eating away at the cuffs of  Keith’s stupid biker gloves, dipping under the flaps and fingers and obvious in the way that he was hissing in panic. Keith trembled and twitched as, between the two of them, they managed to get the corroding gloves from Keith’s frantic hands. The real problem came up after that, when Keith shoved his bare arms under the running facet provided, eyes wide and pained, and then started _laughing_.

It wasn’t a hysterical laugh, or even a pained one. It was one of relief and exhilaration and a humour that Lance couldn’t even begin to understand. Hunk appeared to be of the same opinion, for though Lance couldn’t see his face from this angle, he was obviously shocked.

“Uh, Keith?” Hunk asked, hands hovering nervously in mid-apologetic-panic. “You okay there, buddy? Those are some nasty burns..I am so sorry, I never thought that spice would react with the weird-purple-root-thing like that. Or maybe it was the temperature? Or the space-sugar could’ve---”

“Hunk,” Keith wheezed, still sounding far too amused by the whole situation. “Hunk, it’s fine. It’s not even blistering, see? Just a surface burn, first degree probably.” Keith laughed again, and something about it was looser than usual. Relieved, and almost calm. “It won’t even scar.”

Keith’s nonchalance did flip-floppy things to Lance’s stomach, like the floor was dropping out from under him, but they weren’t the good kind of flip-flops. They were dizzy. Wrong.

Something felt wrong.

Keith was still grinning, loose and dopey with his reddened arms held out and dripping in front of him, and he had turned just slightly so that Lance could see every flicker of emotion that went across his face. Therefore, he saw stark horror overtake the giddy amusement the instant it happened.

“They won’t scar like those did, you mean?” said Hunk, his voice very low and very, very serious.

Keith yanked his hands back, his face draining of colour, but it wasn’t quick enough to keep even Lance from seeing the mottled mess of scars upon the backs of his hands where the gloves usually covered. There were countless, a graveyard of red and white scars, all in different sizes and all of them perfectly circular.

“I-I dont. I mean, it doesn’t really. Um.”

Keith was floundering, that much was obvious, but Hunk said nothing. He just took Keith gently by the shoulders, giving him plenty of time to pull away if he wanted to, and folded him into a warm hug. Keith melted into it, sagging immediately, and he slowly raised his hands to return the embrace.

“Some of those look new. You don’t..still do that, do you?” Hunk asked, quiet as a whisper. Keith’s silence spoke volumes, and Hunk only sighed, squeezing Keith tighter. “...I’m here for you, okay buddy? You’re not alone.”

Keith’s voice was very small, suddenly sounding much more human than Lance had ever witnessed. It shook him to the core.

“You can’t tell Shiro.”

Lance slipped back out the door before Keith could continue, horror sinking in his gut and a tremble to his breath. He set off down the hall the way he came, footsteps as quiet as he could manage and heart pounding much too fast. Feeling sick, he raised a hand to his chest and pressed down, feeling the slight bulge of his chest beneath his binder and the painful tightness of his lungs.  
  
There were some secrets that he wished desperately would remain kept.

\---

\---

“You want us. To run laps.”

The way Keith said it was so unbelievably deadpan that Lance had to smother a snicker in his hand. 

They were all lined up in the center of the training deck, decked out in their paladin armour and ready to kick gladiator butt. So maybe Keith’s growing ire at being set to do a high school PhysEd exercise was justified, but hell, it was always funny to see him riled up.

Lance’s stomach clenched, remembering the incident of the night before. Guilt and indecision warred within him.

He fell silent.

Shiro was more than happy to pick up the slack, sadistic as he was. Lance was eighty percent certain that Shiro was secretly a muscle-headed frat-bro, who spent all of his money on kale at Whole Foods for his protein-smoothies and clocked over six hours of gym time a day. It might be harsh, but really, Lance wasn’t exactly feeling up to running laps today, either.

“I’m going to be pairing you all off later for some one-on-one,” Shiro said, clapping his hands in what he probably thought would incite enthusiasm. He was wrong. Dead wrong. “You all need some experience fighting hand-to-hand to prepare for the instance when your bayard may not be available to you. I want Pidge, Keith, and Lance to run laps while I work one-on-one with Hunk.”

“Uh..okay, I’ll just...do that..” Hunk gulped as all eyes swung to him, and he suddenly appeared much more nauseous than he did a moment earlier.

Keith squinted at Hunk, silently assessing the pros and cons of the situation, before he nodded firmly and set off at a light jog to begin his laps. Ever the excellent soldier, thought Lance with a bitter roll of his eyes. Guess even a drop-out had to be good at something.

It would be nice to be good at something, his mind whispered treacherously. Lance quashed the thought with vicious determination, clenching his teeth tightly. His thoughts were louder than usual, today, as he had spent half of the night staring at his soft, unblemished hands and wondering just what Keith had done to himself. What had he used to make those marks? They looked like cigarette burns, but even if Keith had struck him as a smoker--which he didn’t--where on earth would he get cigarettes in space?

The question of ‘why’ didn’t once cross his mind, only a sick, burning desire to know more.

“Lance? Are you listening to me?”

Lance jolted back to reality, eyes wide, and found Shiro peering at him in exasperated annoyance. Gut sinking, he cracked a practiced grin. “Yes, Black Paladin of my heart?”

Shiro frowned. “Pay attention. Laps, Lance. Now.”

Swallowing sharply, Lance nodded and allowed Pidge’s small hand to take his and drag him, whining, all their way to the edge of the training deck.

“Hup to it, numbers three and five! Number four is already at it like a Carth’id at a Xarian jump race!” Coran’s voice piped up from the intercom, and Lance had to grab Pidge’s hand quickly to prevent them from throwing a very rude hand gesture up at him. It was unlikely Coran would understand it, anyway, so it was really better that Pidge saved that vitriol for someone else. Like Keith.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” Lance huffed and set off at a moderate pace around the edge of the training deck.

Pidge followed a little ways behind him, and Keith was far ahead already, but Lance found himself focussing more and more on the steady pounding of his feet against the floor. The sounds Hunk and Shiro beginning to spar faded off into the distance to be replaced with the thudding of his heartbeat in his ears, and even the quiet swearing of Pidge from behind him became nothing but white noise.

Shiro’s scolding was an ache in the back of his mind, familiar yet no less painful for it. He was used to it, of course, but there was something uniquely painful about being told off by your hero for things that you couldn’t help. There was something uniquely frustrating about your words being disregarded, your growth shoved to the side, and your failures pushed in your face time and time again.

That wasn’t what Shiro was doing to him, though. Not really. He was just being a leader, the best that he could be when none of them had chosen this. Knowing that didn’t make the crippling doubt in Lance’s mind go away, though. If anything, it just seemed to reverberate like laughter in his chest, in his ears, in his eye sockets and his fingers and every bit of himself, because it was all in his head.

It was all in his head, and it was painfully, stupidly pathetic. Keith took out his pain on the outside, it seemed. Maybe that was better. It certainly made it seem more real.

Speaking of Keith, he was was already a lap ahead of him. Disappointment swelled in Lance like waves, crashing over him. Bitter saline. Dissatisfied.

Lance had always liked running. He was more of a swimmer, really, but running came easy to him as well. He could just shut off and run on autopilot, farther and farther until his mind went blank and all he had left was the pounding of his heart and the sound of his sneakers hitting the pavement, kicking up bits of sand and shifting to adjust to the changes in friction. He could forget, if he tried, just how much he hated struggling through life. He could forget that he was so much  _ less _ than he should be. All that there was to focus on was his own body, how it shifted and breathed and slowly filled with an overwhelming sense of nausea---

Wait.

Lance slammed back into his body with a wheezing gasp, his legs feeling like rubber all of a sudden and his chest tight. Oh. Right. He forgot how easy it was to hyper-fixate on something when he was tired, and running was one of the easiest ways to do it. Unfortunately for him, he was on lap five and running with his binder on, and really, the first thing that anyone told you about binder safety was ‘do not exercise with this on, dumbass’. 

Lance knew that, of course, but he was used to it already. He had to be. There were just some things that he had to sacrifice, and if breathing was one of them, then so be it.

Still, he began to slow his pace as his breath began to come in wheezing little gasps, letting both Pidge and Keith pass him on the track. His feet stumbled slightly, tasting bile, and he knew that his face was flushed with exertion even though he felt as though he was closer to barfing than he was passing out.

Oh, ew. No don’t think about barf.

“You giving up, cargo pilot?” Keith panted out as he passed Lance yet again, seeming much too unphased by the constant running. HIs perpetual calm was infuriating, and if Lance didn’t feel as though he would puke if he began to run again, he might have put that show-off in his place.

Instead he just raised two shaking hands and offered Keith a double helping of his favourite finger before slowing, ever so pathetically, to a stop alongside the wall.

Don’t think about barf, don’t think about barf, don’t

“Lance? You’re up next, if you’re--are you okay?” Shiro’s voice cut through the buzzing in Lance’s skull, and he looked up blearily, blinking away the dark spots in his vision.

Shiro was walking towards him, eyebrows furrowed in worry, and no, no he couldn’t have that, Lance couldn’t be the reason Shiro looked so upset and stressed. Not on top of being a failure and backing out of training early and losing to  _ Keith _ . Again. Lance straightened with a tight smile, hands on his hips and breathing slow in an attempt to steady himself.

“Hey, yeah, sorry. I’m fine, and good to go! Ready to get your butt handed to you, Shiro my man?”

Oh god, all he wanted to do was lay down and breathe and never move again, but Shiro was smiling. He bought the lie. 

Yippee.

“Okay, come on over here, then. Keith, slow down, this isn’t a race, it’s about endurance. You too, Hunk, just take it steady. And Pidge, don’t think I don’t see you cutting corners! Don’t make me get Coran to play some ‘inspirational music’!”

“You’re a cruel, cruel man, Shirogane.” Lance said with a chuckle, getting into position in the centre of the training deck and reaching for his bayard at his side.

Shiro sighed, and ran a tired hand through his bangs. They had barely started, and already, Lance was exhausting him. “No, Lance. Hand to hand, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Lance laughed sheepishly like he had just forgotten, and had not been spaced out the entire time Shiro was briefing them. He shifted his stance and raised his arms in front of him, defensive to the very end. Lance had learned to fight at an early age, as most middle children do, but there was a stark difference between childish street brawls in Cuba and actual, structured martial arts on an alien warship.

Shiro was going to wipe the floor with his ass, and honestly, Lance would probably let him. Though not without getting a few good hits in there first, of course.

The thing was, Lance was more accustomed to gymnastics than he was fist fighting, a leftover from his childhood that he had only practiced to satisfy his little sisters. He could dodge well enough, as anyone who had to face off against him in PhysEd would attest to, but he didn’t have a whole lot of striking power in his long limbs. So, when Shiro stood waiting for Lance to begin, he didn’t do anything but bounce lightly on the balls of his feet, waiting.

“Nuh uh, Shiro. You’re not gonna trick me into attacking first; that’s some Keith-level impulsiveness and I am  _ not _ going to be the one to--”

Lance squeaked shrilly as Shiro’s left hand went flying by his face in a fist, dodging to the side just in time to avoid a bruised jaw.

Shiro, the asshole, was smirking.

“Don’t be distracted,” he chided, circling around Lance and forcing him to turn as well, each footstep measured. “Running your mouth is only going to lead to you losing focus. It’s just as bad as being impulsive.”

“You  _ would _ say that,” Lance muttered under his breath as he drew up again, squaring his shoulders. His chest still felt tight, but the nausea had disappeared so he deemed himself well enough to go on the offensive. Or, at least, well enough to try, as in the next second he was blocking blow after blow as Shiro advanced on him, fists flying. His arm bracers provided adequate protection, thankfully, or else Lance was sure that his forearms would be a bruised wreck by now.

Shiro pulled his punches, but not too much. No one would learn if Shiro babied them.

Maybe that was the reason Pidge had gone to Keith of all people for help training. Keith may be strong and determined, but when it came to empathy and the so-called ‘maternal instincts’, he was sorely lacking. Shiro, on the other hand, had a couple obvious biases that everyone on team Voltron were aware of.

Lance gasped and rolled out of the way of a roundhouse kick that he just barely managed to focus on, only to be blind-sided by a backhand to the side of the head. It clapped against his ears, momentarily deafening him, and he squawked indignantly at the pain. Shiro pulled his punches, after all, but it still hurt and sent vibrations crashing through his skull.

“Oh, come on,” whined Lance, his words lopsidedly muffled to his own ears.

Shiro didn’t respond, intent on his task of thoroughly beating his cadets to a well-learned pulp. Only Pidge had the special treatment, it seemed. Lucky them.

Eyes wide, Lance spun and ducked under Shiro’s arm, stepping quickly to get behind him on light feet. Shiro was one step ahead of him, though, and he quickly spun to jab out with his right hand, thankfully inactivated but no less dangerous.

His mind went blank, finally silent after weeks and weeks of buzzing noise, and Lance felt a calm wash over him in place of panic. He let his body go limp, knees buckling, heels digging in, back bending back sharply in muscle memory---Shiro’s hand flew right over his head, missing Lance by a good two feet as he dropped back on his hands into a perfect bridge.

Lance could have laughed at Shiro’s stunned face, hand out in empty air where Lance had been seconds before, but he was too busy swinging his legs up and slamming the top of his foot into Shiro’s unprotected chin. Shiro staggered back, biting out a shout of surprise that might have been a curse, and Lance let the motion follow him through up onto his hands and back onto his feet in a wobbly but effective kickover.

He let out whoop of elation and surprise, thrilled to get in a hit in such a spectacular way, and therefor was entirely blindsided when Shiro’s foot came out of nowhere and landed firmly in his solar plexus.

Lance let out a choked shout, all of the air forced from his lungs, and suddenly he was launched across the room and tumbling, tripping, rolling to a stop a good ten feet from Shiro’s extended leg.

Oh. Ow.

He sucked in another breath, tasting dust and iron on his tongue, and felt his vision throb brightly and then go dim when his lungs refused to expand. Panic seized him, aching in his chest and screaming in his head.

Crap, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't---

Shit.

Pidge had been right after all.

Everything tilted diagonally, going blurry like streetlights on a rainy night.

Someone was shouting, and it was so loud that it passed right through his ears without pause, a jarring mess of sensations. He was being rolled over and lifted up, his whole body felt heavy.

He couldn’t breathe.

Delirious with pain, Lance scrambled blindly for his chestplate, clawing at the latches on the sides until someone--he couldn’t see couldn’t breathe couldn’t think--swatted his hands away to help remove the armour from him.

It didn’t help. Why didn’t it help? 

There was panic. So much panic.

Black spots and then darkness, then bright, too bright. He couldn’t keep his eyes open.

Why couldn’t he breathe?

“Lance…?”

It was quiet. It was loud. The silence was deafening in his ears, ringing like a gong and muddying his senses.

Lance let out a choked sob, barely a whimper.

“Lance, buddy, can you hear me?”  
  
It felt like he had lost a fight with a train. Or had it just been a gladiator bot? Lance wasn’t sure. He couldn’t breathe, but everything was going numb, anyway. It was calming. Oh, damn. He was probably passing out. That couldn’t be good. There were hands on his sides, rubbing up and down, trying to calm him.

Too close. Much too close. Panic seized him once more, but Lance had barely enough energy to jerk weakly against the hands before dizziness swept over him.

Fuck. He couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t he breathe?

The hands moved with purpose, and with them came a voice.

“Hey...I’m gonna take this off, okay? It’s just me and you, everyone else left already. I’m just going to undo it, Lance.. It’s okay..”

Unable to process what was being asked of him, Lance simply choked out a sound that was even less than a whine The voice seemed to take that as consent enough, for the next thing Lance knew, there were strong hands tearing at the fabric of his uniform. Cold air rushed along his tingling skin, shocking but still much-too-numb, and before he could come to terms with the fact that someone had just  _ torn his paladin uniform open _ , there was a second tearing, this one much louder.

Velcro released its grip on Lance, and the world burst into colour.

He sucked in air greedily, his whole body convulsing, shuddering, his hands gripping wildly at anything he could get a hold of. Through it all, someone held him steady, whispering quiet words in his ear and rubbing his back, slow and calm.

Lance felt like he might cry. Then, he was crying. He could breathe, and it was too much, and he was choking on his sobs, being pulled close in strong arms, and held for the first time in months.

He could breathe. What was happening? Why did everything hurt so much and--

Why was his binder undone.

“Hey, hey Lance, it’s okay. It’s okay, just breathe with me, all right?”

Shiro. That was Shiro’s voice, much too close to his ear. This was Shiro’s chest that he was pressed against, Shiro’s shoulder that he was sobbing into, and Shiro’s hands on his half-exposed body.

Terror swooped over him, and Lance felt himself go very still.

“It’s just me and you, Lance.. Breathe with me… It’s okay..” Shiro was still talking, his voice casual, unbothered, just filling up the silence between them. His arms were so strong. “That was an impressive move, earlier. I never would have expected you to bend like that; it really caught me off guard. That kick of yours is probably going to leave a bruise, heh. We should put some more flexibility training on our daily schedule, because..wow, Lance. I didn’t know you knew gymnastics. That’s an impressive skill to have.”

Lance swallowed, tasting bile and the salty tang of tears on his tongue. He licked his lips, finding them dry and chapped and painful, and swallowed again. Tried to speak. Failed.

Shiro was more than happy to pick up the slack, apparently. “I doubt you’ll be able to get another hit in like that now that I know what to look for, but really, Lance. I didn’t expect that.”

Lance chanced a peek up through his sweaty bangs and caught a glimpse of Shiro’s face. A wry smile was on his lips, and he looked distant. Proud, almost.

“You’ve come a long way, Lance.”

“Y...you think?” Lance croaked, and was ashamed of how much his voice cracked with those two words. Shiro didn’t startle when Lance spoke, and only looked more pleased, his smile widening.

“Yeah, I do. Though I have to admit, I didn’t think that you would be dumb enough to train with a binder on. Don’t tell me you’ve been doing it all this time.”

Lance’s mouth dropped open, and he pulled back slowly, his hands curling in front of his chest protectively and suddenly very aware of the large tear in the side of his uniform. “I, wuh, no-- How did you--”

“Answer the question, cadet,” Shiro said only half jokingly, and this close up, Lance could see the grey circles under his eyes. He looked stressed, and afraid, and above all, guilty.

Hot shame rose in Lance’s stomach, and he ducked his head, feeling sick.

“I-I’m sorry,” he blurted, unable to stop himself. “I..I don’t do it all the time during training. I mean, only when it’s..when it’s really bad, you know? I didn’t expect to be doing laps today, and it slipped my mind, and it just feels so wrong and so naked without it and I just couldn’t stand the idea of being so exposed a-a-and--”

“Hey..” Shiro soothed, pulling his hands back and giving Lance’s shoulder a firm squeeze before withdrawing his touch entirely. “It’s okay, Lance. I’m not mad. If anything, I should be the one apologizing. I didn’t mean to kick you so hard; you gave me quite a scare.”

“But I..I lied to you,” Lance whispered, the words bitter on his tongue, and that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? Lance Espinosa, worthless and annoying and a liar, on top of it all. “When Pidge came out, I should have..should’ve..”

He felt more than saw Shiro shake his head, and slowly let himself fall silent. His mind was buzzing, all of his thoughts screaming at him, and he wanted nothing more than to silence them with music and laughter and water,  _ gods _ did he miss the ocean. He missed everything. He missed feeling comfortable in his own skin.

“Lance..just because it was the right time for Pidge to come out to the team, doesn’t mean it was for you. You don’t owe anyone that information if you don’t want to give it, okay? It doesn’t matter how long it takes, or how long you keep that secret. If you don’t ever want to tell anyone, that’s okay too.” Shiro paused, then sighed, “The only thing I’m upset about is that you put yourself at risk. As a Paladin of Voltron, and as part of this team, you can’t be so reckless with your safety.”

Lance’s heart sunk, and he sagged despite himself. Of course. As a Paladin of Voltron, he had to take care of himself. He had a universe to defend, after all.

“Yeah..” he heard himself say, the words bitterly hollow to his own ears. Lance sat back slowly, ignoring how his heart still hammered in his too-tight chest, how he felt lightheaded and dizzy, like he might crumple like wet tissue paper. He stood, drawing his arms over his chest and tugging the torn material of his uniform close to his body. “Yeah, of course. You don’t worry about Voltron, mi capitán, I’ll make sure to..to do the thing to keep myself from..”

Lance trailed off, the words caught in his throat. His head was scrambled, his tongue felt heavy, and the words just wouldn’t come. He was clutching at his chest, covering what he could, sickening horror swooping over him at how exposed he felt. He knew that Shiro was talking to him but he couldn't hear it over his own racing thoughts.

Stiffly, before he could humiliate himself any further, Lance turned on his heel with as much dignity as he could muster and walked at a near-run towards the changing rooms, knowing that no one would follow him.

He could feel tears burning traitorously in his eyes as the door slipped shut behind him, and he wished that, just once, someone would.


	2. In Which Laser Guns are Too Quiet, and Pidge Continues to Be Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which everything goes wrong, but faster

One thing the Castle of Lions could never seem to replicate was sunlight. That wasn’t to say that it was cold, really; the Alteans did prefer a cooler climate than most of the known universe, but it wasn’t anything the humans couldn’t handle.

What it was, though, was clinical. Sterile. Crystalline. White and blue and pale as stone. It felt like a museum, like the castle it was, and nothing at all like a home.

Lance desperately missed the yellow glow of sunlight, and with his back tucked to the cold wall of the shower as burning hot water crashed down on him, he missed it more than ever. Nothing could compare to the glow of midday sun on your back. Nothing felt the same as the rosy tint of closed eyelids on a sunny day. Nothing had made him smile more than the smell of the sea and the sun on his face.

He missed the rain. He missed grass. He missed warm blankets of scratchy wool that smelled just a little bit like spilled soup. He missed campfires on the beach, and the time his sister Lorraine had jumped one and caught the end of her pyjama pants on fire . He missed worn wood floors, and the sand stuck between floorboards, and the soft, quiet sound of his mama’s slippers.

Homesickness was vicious, and the castle, though it tried its best, failed miserably at keeping it at bay.

Another thing that the Castle failed miserably at was having the slightest amount of empathy. Even for an enormous, alien spaceship with powers beyond anything they could ever hope to understand, Lance still wished that it would have a little bit more consideration when it decided to raise an alarm on them out of nowhere.

A piercing claxon wailed from every inch of the castle, prompting Lance to go into a series of dramatic and highly acrobatic shower maneuvers to avoid braining himself on anything hard. Biting back the urge to break into a slew of curse words that would make Pidge proud, he clawed his way to the shower faucet to turn off the water, eyes wide and blinking in the steam.

Of course, he thought. There was no way that the Galra would allow him time to actually recover from the experience of being outed to his commanding officer in peace.

That would be too kind. Too considerate. Lance was SO ready to fight them.

In a flurry of slippery feet and bitten-off curses--because Lance was NOT going to be the one responsible for teaching Pidge any more swear words; he was an uncle, he had a reputation to uphold!--he finally managed to dry off and half clothe himself enough to rush his way to his room, where his paladin armour was waiting patiently for him as though it had never been torn off of his heaving chest.

Nice. Shiro had probably put it back for him after telling all of the other Paladins what had happened. He would agonize over that later, when he wasn’t half-deafened by the alarm.

His binder was left discarded on his bed, the tight fabric and velcro mocking him with every hitched breath that expanded his aching ribs. Instead, Lance pushed down the shuddering dysphoria that plagued him and forced his damp body into a new flightsuit. His armour WAS sufficient enough cover for his chest, even without any type of sports bra, but Lance still hated the way that he could feel his chest expanding and pressing up against the inside, making everything feel much too tight and skin-crawlingly wrong.

The entire process took just under five minutes, but by the time Lance rushed to the bridge, the alarm had ceased and he was still the last one there. Ignoring the stares sent his way, most likely watching the way his face was a little too red and his eyes a little too wide, he looked to Allura expectantly.

“Sorry I’m late, I--”

“Lance, wonderful of you to join us,” Allura said tersely, barely sparing a glance of exasperated disdain at his slouched posture before turning back to Shiro and the others, who stood before her at full attention. “Paladins, we have a situation on our hands. A Galra transport ship has been sighted in our radar, and at this present time, we have no reason to believe that they have detected our presence.”

“Uh, Princess?” Hunk piped up, looking extremely uncomfortable. “How are we sure that they haven’t spotted us yet? ‘Cause, no offense, but this castle is over 10,000 years old, right? Technology had to have advanced since Altea’s time.” 

“Hunk has a point,” said Keith, crossing his arms tightly around himself and frowning at the space over Allura’s left shoulder as though it had personally offended him. “The Castle isn’t exactly small. And we still haven’t figured out how the Galra are tracking us.”

At this, all of the Paladins seemed to sag in exhaustion. It was becoming more and more likely for them to be found by the Galra, lately, and it was beginning to wear on them all. 

“That, Number Four, is an issue for another quintant,” said Coran, a sparkle in his bright eyes that stood out even through the dark shadows that resided like bruises beneath them. They were all exhausted, and it was no secret to all of them that both Coran and Allura had been awake for far too long. “Right now, we know two things. One..!”

He cut himself off, pointing dramatically towards Allura with finger guns that he had surely learned from Lance himself. Allura sighed, but a twitch of a smile pulled at the corner of her lips.

“One thing that we can be sure of is that the Galra are on a steady course towards an outpost on the edge of the Qintalen System. Coran and I have been monitoring their progress over the course of the last Varga, and they show no signs of fluctuation in either speed or direction.”

“Right you are, Princess!” Coran nodded, pleased. “The other thing that we know to our advantage is….?”

He trailed off once again, this time turning his finger guns to Shiro, who was very obviously trying hard to remain straight faced. 

Despite himself, Lance felt a flutter of pain deep in the recesses of his stomach at how easily Coran was getting the two most uptight members of their crew to relax, when he had been trying for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to  _ not _ be the comedy relief.

Unaware of Lance’s internal struggle, Shiro spoke up, amusement colouring his voice. “Currently, we’re circling the dwarf planet A3-10769, which is known for its electrical storms and fluctuating gravitational pull. By letting the Castle drift along its unsteady orbit with the debris it has already accumulated, we have effectively become nothing but a blip on the radar of those around us.”

“We’re a moon..” said Hunk in slowly dawning realization. 

Coran grinned and twirled his mustache with vicious glee. “More like a rather large, shiny asteroid, but yes, Number Two. We’re hidden both from normal scans and the naked eye. Perfect for an ambush.”

“But why would we risk that?” Unable to help himself, Lance stepped forward, his fingers twitching restlessly at his sides. “It’s just a transport ship, right? It’s probably manned by sentries; why would we risk an assault when it will  _ definitely _ bring half of Zarkon’s high command down on us?”

“Because it’s not just a transport ship, Lance,” Pidge cut in for the first time. Their mouth was set in a firm line. “My scans show many sentient lifeforms aboard the vessel. Non-Galra lifeforms.”

Prisoners.

Lance’s stomach dropped, but before he could take back his words, Pidge continued.

“My family could be on that ship. If not them, then there are still over a dozen prisoners aboard who deserve better than to die in a Galra slave camp.” Their eyes burned holes into Lance, exposing him, judging him. “I thought you would care about that.”

“I..I didn’t,” Lance stuttered, his tongue feeling too big in his mouth and his words escaping him. He startled violently as a heavy hand came down on his shoulder, gentle but firm.

“That’s enough, Pidge. You know Lance didn’t mean it in that way.” said Shiro firmly, frowning at the youngest member of their party.

Pidge scowled even deeper, sinking into themself and typing obsessively at the keys of their laptop. If Lance had thought Coran’s eye bags were bad, they were nothing compared to Pidge’s; it was apparent that they hadn’t paused for rest, even after their failure of a training session.

Trembling ever so slightly and feeling off balance, Lance looked up at Shiro, his breath caught in his throat.

Shiro wasn’t looking at him. He stared straight ahead, watching Allura move towards the main console with an unreadable look on his face.

Oh, thought Lance as they disbanded to head to their individual Lions. He felt floaty and half-present, the static of his brain clouding the sensations of his movement. That was right. As a Paladin of Voltron, he had a duty. They all had a duty. They couldn’t be laid up by personal feelings. Images flashed before his eyes as he settled into his pilot’s seat, flickering far too quickly to process and yet far too slowly to ignore. Keith’s burned hands and trembling shoulders. Pidge’s manic typing and bright, red-rimmed eyes. Hunk’s hands twisting over and over in front of him, gripping onto something to ground him when nothing was available. Allura and Coran, working hard into the dead of the night without rest so that the ghosts that plagued them would be the last of Zarkon’s victories.

Shiro, tired and scarred and holding him close, his eyes upon him, exposing every inch of him and making him feel raw. 

Releasing a shuddering breath, Lance blinked hard and bit his lip until he could taste the sharp pang of blood. It centred him, brought him back from the static of his mind and steadied the shaking in his hands.  “Alright, Lady Blue,” he murmured, tightening his grip on the handles of his Lion. “It’s time to do something right, for once.”

\--

The plan was a simple one.

The goal was to get onto the Galra ship undetected, and remain so until Pidge could locate the exact location of the prison cells. 

It should have been easy. They had done much more complicated reconnaissance and rescue missions than taking on one measly transport ship, so many, in fact, that the procedure was becoming instinctive.

Green, as the smallest and most versatile Lion, would take down Pidge, Lance, and Shiro. The Blue and Black Lions would remain hidden with the castle, unnecessary for this attack. Keith and Hunk, with Yellow and Red, would play look-out and, when the time came, would act as a bombastic distraction that no promotion-seeking Galra commander could resist.

It was a plan that was practiced and perfected, with Shiro for close-range and infiltration, Pidge for mid-range and intelligence, and Lance for strategy and cover-fire. It was practiced, so practiced that it was practically on autopilot.

Of course something had to go wrong.

“This isn’t good,” Shiro whispered, hoarse and quiet under his breath. He pressed Pidge up against the wall around the corner, going still as stone as a Galra patrol stalked by in uniform. In their planning, they had accounted for two or three Galra soldiers to be aboard the vessel: the helmsman, the Galra in charge of the prisoners, and perhaps a second in command or mechanic. There weren’t supposed to be any living soldiers on the vessel, but there they were, armed and vigilant as ever. Over Pidge’s helmeted head, Shiro met Lance’s eyes. 

Shaken but determined, Lance nodded, and Shiro jumped out into the corridor.

Laserfire was upon them in an instant, followed by shouts of surprise and pain as Shiro swiftly took down three Galra soldiers and lunged, hand glowing, at a fourth. In the chaos, Lance and Pidge were quick to sneak by, Lance with his bayard poised and ready, Pidge with deadly concentration and a map playing out before their eyes.

They ran.

Footsteps pounded on the metal floor, their breathing in sync, and with every corner they turned, the anticipation rose. Soon the sound of Shiro fighting was drowned out by their own pounding hearts and the steady rumble of machinery.

_ “Pidge, Lance, come in--” _

“Kind of...busy now,” Lance puffed out under his breath, shooting Pidge a glance over his shoulder as he scanned the corridor. His vision was sharper than ever through the scope of his bayard, and he needed to remain focussed.

_ “...ance, you n….et there--” _

_ “Pidge, we can’t get….ld of Shiro, is….ay--” _

“God dammit,” Pidge grunted, tapping the side of their helmet twice and trying to cut through the fuzz that masked Hunk’s staticky voice. Their eyes flicked madly across their visor, following the map they had downloaded aboard the castle, before they deactivated it with a deep frown. “Something must be jamming the signal. They know we’re here.”

“No kidding, they know we’re here,” said Lance with a noticeable crack in his voice. “We’re not exactly in our best stealth mode, right now.” He backed up slowly, every step soundless and his gun sweeping the corridor from end to end. Any sentry that came running was swiftly shot down, their fried circuitry adding to the piles of lifeless metal on either end of the hall. “We need to get out of here. Shiro needs our help, and it's obvious that the intel was wrong so let’s just cut our losses and  _ get out alive _ .”

“We can’t do that. The scanners indicate that this is where the greatest collection of non-Galra sentient life is located; I can’t get the translator's to work on Galra script, but I’m 87% sure that this is the prison block.” Pidge had stopped them in front of a heavy door, their shoulders hunched and eyes firmly set on the screen at their wrist. They produced a cluster of wires from a compartment just under their forearm, grumbling under their breath about ohw without the help of Shiro’s Galra-tech hand, they had to do things the hard way. Two wires were attached to the panel alongside the massive door, and Pidge’s fingers were moving like lightning in vivid contrast to just how  _ slowly _ the firewalls were going down.

For Lance, it was excruciating to watch. His trigger finger twitched, curling into his palm to avoid shooting without meaning to, and he let out a shaking breath. He wanted desperately to say something, to try to force Pidge’s hand, but he knew better than most what it was like to miss something so desperately that he would do anything to get it back. Maybe they all did. Maybe that was why all of them were so eager to help Pidge reclaim their family.

“Pidge…” Lance started, hesitating, tasting the words on his tongue and trying to find a way to say what he needed to. Pidge didn’t give him the opportunity.

“This is our only chance,” they said, the faintest of trembles in their voice. “I’m sure my brother and father are behind here, they  _ have  _ to be. So for once in your life just shut up and do your job, Lance. Keep watch so we can  _ get them out.” _

That stung, but Lance couldn’t blame them for being snappy. The tension was so high, the smell of burned electronics clogging the air with a fine, toxic smoke, and the static from their coms had yet to cease.

“I can do that, Pidgie-pie” he said, shouldering his bayard and then swinging it around when he sensed movement at the end of the hall. “Just leave it to your sharpshooter.” 

Flashing Pidge a confident smirk, Lance barely spared a glance to aim before he fired twice in quick succession at the incoming Galra.

When a strangled shout rang out in the hallway, however, Lance found himself unable to look away.

Two guards went down, one in a screaming heap, their kneecap blown out and sending them sprawling back. The other, however, made not a sound as they fell like lead.

The hallway was suddenly very cold. It was silent save for the tapping of Pidge’s fingers and the wheezing of the first guard, who lay convulsing on the floor of the ship, clutching their leg. The other guard lay far too still, the space behind them on the wall where their head had been just moments before smoking ever so slightly.

The scent of ozone and charred metal was overpoweringly strong, but not quite enough to block out the horrific odour of burned flesh.

Lance’s bayard slipped from his shaking fingers and clattered to the floor, its bulk bouncing and immediately regressing into its dormant form, but he didn’t spare it a single glance. His eyes were on the body of the Galra soldier, faceless, unmoving, and slowly seeping blood into the corpses of the sentries around them.

Dead. They were dead. The Garrison had prepared him for this, as any Military operation was wont to do, but no hour-long lecture of handful of pamphlets could compare to the reality of it.

Lance had killed them. Shot them down without a care, in complete nonchalance.

There were only supposed to be sentries on this vessel, not living soldiers.

Barely breathing, Lance backed up sharply, black spots swimming in his vision. His shoulder hit the door beside Pidge with a jarring thud, and then hands were on him. He barely felt them. He was numb.

Cold.

“Lance? Lance, calm down. It..it’s okay! It’s gonna be okay, we just have to finish this..”

The guard’s screaming had died into a quiet whimper, barely audible over the rumbling of the engine and Lance’s own blood pounding in his ears.

_ “..nce? Pid ge wh….oing on?” _

“Lance, come on,” Pidge stressed, taking Lance’s madly shaking hands in their own and squeezing them tightly. “Please, you need to snap out of it, we need to finish the mission!”

Wide, pin-pricked blue eyes met Pidge’, and Lance forced himself to breathe in short, choppy staccato. Pidge was leaning over him, looking down, his hands in theirs and their face so close to his that he could feel their breath on his sweaty forehead. 

When had he sat down?

“Y..yeah,” he muttered through trembling lips, forcing himself to speak through his shallow breaths. “Yeah, I’m...okay, that...okay..”

Pidge smiled down at him, a shaky, fake thing that meant the world to him just because they were trying, and squeezed his hands once more before letting go and straightening. “Grab your bayard and stand up, Lancey-Lance. We’ve got plenty of time t---GET DOWN!!”

The next few seconds happened in slow motion. Lance looked up sharply, just in time to see the injured guard raise their gun and fire.

Laserfire was inappropriately quiet. Pidge was even more so.

Lance felt the hot blood spray upon his face even before their weight crashed down upon him, and time stopped.  Like a puppet with its strings cuz, Pidge collapsed heavy and boneless in a rush of crimson. There was a gaping hole in their side where their armour failed to protect them, an empty space that hadn’t been there a moment before. 

Across the hall, the Galra spasmed and shrieked, Pidge’s bayard lodged in the gap of their armour where their shoulder met their neck. It seemed to go n forever, a horrible soundtrack to the violence of the moment. 

When he went silent, the hall seemed to echo.

“No..” Lance breathed, tearing his horrified gaze from the unconscious Galra. Pidge made no response, their body a warm weight against his lap. In one hand, their bayard remained gripped loosely, already reverting back to its dormant state. Their hair was a sweaty mess upon a ghostly pale face, and with every beat of their heart, Lance felt more and more hot blood spill upon his legs, seeping into the cracks in his armour.

Pidge had been shot. Pidge had been shot protecting him.

Pidge was going to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank everyone who has given me comments and kudos!!!
> 
> Special thanks to thebestworstthing, who was the inspirational kick in the pants i needed to continue this.
> 
> One last chapter, y'all~


	3. In Which Lance has Too Many Emotions, but Not All are Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue and red was supposed to make purple.
> 
> That was the law of the world, wasn’t it? Two pigments mixed together. Cadmium and lapis lazuli. Crimson and azure. Red and blue made purple.
> 
> Lance wasn’t purple.
> 
> Perhaps it was the green mixed in that ruined the equation.

Blue and red was supposed to make purple. 

That was the law of the world, wasn’t it? Two pigments mixed together. Cadmium and lapis lazuli. Crimson and azure. Red and blue made purple.

Lance wasn’t purple.

Perhaps it was the green mixed in that ruined the equation.

Pidge was a silent weight against him as Lance limped as fast as he could down the corridors of the Galra transport ship. They hung over one of his shoulders, their bleeding abdomen pressed tight against the front of Lance’s armour in a dismal attempt to stem the blood flow. One of their arms trailed like a morbid flag behind Lance’s back, swaying gently back and forth with every staggered step towards freedom.

It was only the sluggish beating of their heart next to Lance’s ear and the quiet, ragged breath that passed through their bloodied lips that let him know that Pidge was alive.

“It’s gonna be okay, Pidge,” he muttered through gritted teeth, every breath a high pitched wheeze, “Coran’ll fix you right up.” His leg throbbed; his knee was swollen and refused to bend properly, and it hurt nearly as much as the large burn that tore its way across his thigh, making every step forward thrum with pulsing agony. His foot caught on the edge of a fallen Galra sentry, and he stumbled ever so slightly.

Pidge let out a choked groan that was almost a sob, the sound muffled by their activated helmet, and Lance blinked black spots out of his eyes. He wished desperately that Pidge would speak up, that they would find some tiny grasp of consciousness, enough to calm his nerves and mend the cracking in his heart.

Pidge said not a word.

Lance moved forward.

There was a sound just to the left of him, and without hesitation, Lance swung his bayard around in his free hand, aimed, and fired. It hit the Galra sentry point-blank in the helm, and it went down with a pitiful crumple of metal.

The bayard was hot in his hand, sticking uncomfortably to his skin. Lance was hyper aware of every one of his fingers wrapped around the grip, twitching at the trigger, the weight unfamiliar and yet comforting. His trusty bayard had shifted to suit his needs, becoming lighter and more compact; a pistol was much easier to shoot one-handed than a rifle.

He should have been proud of this accomplishment, being the first of their little Paladin squadron to find a second shift for his bayard, but there was not an ounce of pride left within him.

He hadn’t been paying attention.

He should have been looking at the map with Pidge, or made a plan to meet up with Shiro somewhere after the rescue. He was supposed to be the strategy guy, the one with the plans, the one who looked at all of the rambling lines of numbers that Hunk and Pidge spewed out and simplified it in a few short lines. He was supposed to keep everyone together, and he had failed even that. He had messed up, and he would be the first to admit it. The one thing he had wanted to do was have a successful mission and prove to Shiro--no, to himself--that he was worthy of being on team Voltron no matter how much of a screw-up he was. Now Pidge was hurt, he was moving at half-speed due to a busted leg, and they were hopelessly lost.

The coms flickered uselessly in his ears. Broken threads of conversation could be heard, but nothing was discernible aside from the occasional curse and one word, repeated over and over so often that Lance felt as though his heart would tear from his chest.

Voltron.

They needed Voltron.

Maybe it and all been a trap. Maybe Keith and Hunk were in over their heads. Maybe the Lions leaving the asteroid belt of A3-10769 had alerted Zarkon of their whereabouts, or maybe a distress beacon had been let out once the first soldier had heard the commotion below deck.

Maybe they were just in over their heads, all because Lance had been off his game.

Bitter shards of pain sliced at his throat, and he swallowed them down. “Guys,” he croaked into the coms for what felt like the hundredth time, trying to make his voice as audible as possible while he crept his way back in what he hoped was the general direction of the Green Lion. “I need extraction. Abort mission. Pidge is hurt.”

Static. A muffled exclamation. Something that might have been his name. More static.

A sob built up in Lance’s throat. Impulsively, he raised his bayard and fired twice into the corpse of the nearest sentry, sending sparks flying up around him and adding to the acrid smoke in the air. “Dammit,” he swore, swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand and smearing who-knows-what across his cheekbones. His arms shook. Everything ached. He deeply regretted not logging more time at the gym. T could only help so much before real effort had to be made. 

“Dammit, dammit, damn i-it…”

When Keith was in trouble, Red came for him. Why hadn’t Green come for Pidge? He didn’t question Blue’s absence, after all of the broken promises and half-baked aspirations he had fed her. He was supposed to get better. He was supposed to be strong. He was supposed to be the right leg of Voltron. Funny, now, that his own right leg was the one bleeding dark into his flight suit.

Keith’s damaged skin flashed before his mind’s eye, mocking him. Keith wore his pain on his sleeves, and Red still loved him. Red still came for him.

Why couldn’t he be more like Keith?

There were footsteps. Footsteps, coming closer. They echoed with uncanny dissonance, heavy and too un-uniform to be a sentry. Galra. A Galra soldier. Organic life. 

Wide eyed, Lance spun on his heel, bayard raised and ready, Pidge a deadweight on his aching shoulders. His hand shook slightly, overbalanced and unused to the new weightlessness of his bayard, and he tried to force the feeling down. He could do this. He could do this.

Aim. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Be still.

A body rounded the corner, and Lance was firing, hair trigger, before he recognized the black and white armour. 

\---

A wordless cry echoed across the hall, and in the deep magenta lighting of the Galra ship, the flash of vivid blue stood out like a shockwave.

Shiro’s hand raised and caught the bolt of light like it was nothing at all, disintegrating the blue energy in a simple curl of his robotic fingers.

He looked up, stunned but never caught off guard, and met Lance’s terrified face.

Relief was sweet for one fraction of a second, before Shiro saw the exact moment all of the adrenaline that Lance was running on abandoned him in one fell swoop.

His dark eyes shuttered and he swayed on the spot, unbalanced and leaning heavily on one leg. The other was resting gingerly at his side, its armour cracked around the edges and stained a red so dark that, in the light of the Galra ship, it appeared black. He was badly injured, that much was obvious, but the paladin in Lance’s arms was in so much worse shape that it sent sparks of fear down Shiro’s spine.

He rushed forward and transferred their weight from Lance’s arms to his own quickly.

Katie.

No, Pidge.

That was still hard to remember, sometimes. Especially in the bowels of a ship from his nightmares, looking upon his two youngest paladins covered in blood and terrified. Hell on Earth, they were both so young. Too young to be fighting a war.

Too young to be small and limp in his arms.

Pidge looked just like Matt, so much that it was horrifying. So much that he didn’t notice Lance’s paling face until it was impacting with his arm. 

“Whoa! Whoa there, buddy,” exclaimed Shiro, steadying Lance as much as he could while shifting so most of Pidge’s weight was resting on his Galra arm.

“You’re here….” Lance mumbled, swaying against him. He made a small, gusty sound like a sigh, and blinked up at Shiro with moisture blurred eyes. Just lifting his head looked like it cost him an incredible amount of effort.

Shiro’s heart clenched. He squeezed Lance’s shoulder and gave him a look up and down, concerned. “I’m here, Sharpshooter,” he said softly, “We need to get going. Can you walk?”

Lance shook his head, then paused, looking dizzy. He then nodded, a slower, more thought out movement. “Y..yeah,” he said, seeming to chew on every letter before spitting it out. “I’m good, Shiro. I can walk.”

Shiro eyed Lance doubtfully, then nodded. “Okay. Keith is on his way with Red; they’ll get Pidge to the castle faster than we can in Green.”

Lance nodded vaguely, barely coherent, but when Shiro nudged him to follow him down the hall he began to walk with no protest. He was limping badly, but it looked as though the bleeding in his thigh had stopped for the moment. 

Shiro felt panic licking at his throat. He wanted nothing more than to speed up, to rush Pidge to the checkpoint and get them back to the castle safe and sound, but he couldn’t leave Lance. They struggled forward at an excruciating pace through the debris-ridden halls of the ship, Pidge far too still and Lance far too subdued.

“Did..did you get the prisoners out?” Lance mumbled suddenly, startling Shiro out of his thoughts. “Pidge didn’t have time to..they couldn’t get the door to turn on..”

Shiro swallowed harshly. 

“We’re working on it,” he lied. He had no idea what was happening in the other end of the ship. Hopefully, he could send Hunk and Keith back shortly to rescue whatever surviving prisoners were left from their attack on the Galra ship. It would be best to spare Lance’s feelings until that was possible.

Lance made a wounded noise, but said nothing. His pace sped ever so slightly, and Shiro could hear a hitching gasp at the end of every one of Lance’s breaths that spoke of barely suppressed whimpers. Just as he was about to say something, to slow down or offer Lance an arm to lean on, the comms crackled to life in their ears.

_ “Shiro? Shiro, I’m here.”  _ Keith’s voice echoed oddly, like it was coming from a million different places at once. _ “Green isn’t looking so good, where’s Pidge?” _

Relief swept through in a tidal wave. Shiro could have wept. “Keith,” he gasped, then coughed harshly. His voice lowered to a more respectable octave, he started again, “Keith, Pidge needs immediate extraction. Lock on to my signal and--”   
  


“Shiro! Pidge!” Keith shouted as he sprinted around the nearest corner, skidding on a disembodied arm and nearly face planting into the wall. “Shiro, are they--holy shit, Lance!”

Getting over his shock, Shiro looked away from the welcome sight of Keith in time to see Lance stagger hard, leaning all of his weight on one leg and looking fit to throw up his breakfast. Okay, it was officially time to stop fretting and get going. 

“Here, Keith, take Pidge and get to the castle ASAP,” he ordered, handing Pidge over to Keith’s waiting arms with and air of seriousness fit for a morgue. It would be an over reaction, if he had anything to say about it.

Keith, bless his heart, tore his eyes from Lance and nodded sharply. In seconds he was gone, sprinting as fast as he could with Pidge in his arms towards his lion.

Shiro let himself relax ever so slightly. That was one thing taken care of. Hell. How had a simple rescue and extraction mission gone so sour?

He turned his attention back to Lance, and what he saw tore at his heart. The poor kid was barely standing, his jaw clenching and unclenching in a vain attempt to keep himself from crying out in pain. HIs armour was a mess of blue and red, the blood on it crusty and old in some places and alarmingly fresh in others. His glassy eyes were bloodshot and strained; he looked inches away from crying.

He wouldn’t meet Shiro’s gaze.

Shiro sighed. It seemed as though the earlier incident between them had caused more damage than he had thought. He had to tread carefully. While a frightened Lance was nowhere near the danger level of a frightened Keith, they both had some dreadfully sharp elbows and a penchant for panicking.

“Lance,” he started slowly, reaching out with on hand and then immediately freezing when Lance jerked back from his touch. Okay, no touching. Touching is bad. Keeping that in mind, Shiro lowered his arms to his sides and relaxed his shoulders as much as he could manage. That wasn’t a whole lot, but the effort was what counted, right? “Lance, it’s okay. It’s just me, Shiro. Pidge is safe, Keith has them. We’ve just gotta get you back to the castle and we can fix up that leg, okay?”

Lance said nothing. He was staring at the floor like he wanted it to swallow him up. His legs were shaking so hard that the tremors were visible even in the dull violet light of the ship.

Shiro had to get this boy to a healing pod, and quick. 

“You did good, Lance,” he said suddenly, and immediately knew that he said the right thing when Lance’s shoulders stiffened visibly. Swallowing hard, Shiro shuffled forward slightly and continued, “Pidge is safe because you protected them. You kept your cool and made it to an area of the ship where communications were better. You protected them, Lance. They’re safe because of you.”

“I’m proud of you.”

That seemed to be the breaking point. Lance’s eyes flooded with tears, and when he staggered forward Shiro was there. He seemed to be trying to say something, his throat working soundlessly, face a mask of pain and guilt.

Shiro knew that it would have to wait. He swooped Lance into his arms without pause, cradling him as carefully as he could and making sure that his long legs were elevated enough to stem the bloodflow. Hell, Lance was light. He barely blipped on Shiro’s radar, even though he was trembling hard enough to feel through his armour and choking in an attempt not to sob. The position was a familiar one. Lance was slender in his arms, and gasping just as hard as he had been during training. Just as pained and young as he was when the balmera crystal had been infected, and he had nearly been blown to bits.

Shiro frowned.

“Lance,” he said softly, being very careful not to jostle his subordinate as he maneuvered his way through the minefield of debris. Lance made a humming sound to indicate that he was listening, his fingers curling on front of Shiro’s breastplate. “Are you wearing your binder right now?”

Lance stiffened, as Shiro knew he would, and after a long, agonizing few seconds, shook his head ‘no’.

Shiro breathed a sigh of relief, his shoulders dropping. “Good,” he murmured, then tried to put on a lighter tone in an attempt to brighten Lance’s spirits. “That was a pretty dumb move, cadet. I might’ve had to make you write lines, but I think this was punishment enough.”

Lance mumbled something against Shiro’s chest, hiding beneath his chin and making it very difficult to understand him. Shiro wasn’t overly concerned; Lance had a way of talking a lot with nothing to say. He just had to get the two of them to Green, and then hopefully the other Lion would be benevolent (or morbidly curious) enough to allow him to pilot them back to the castle. He managed to ignore Lance’s incoherent muttering for only a moment more, however, before slender fingers were digging into the back of his neck and Lance’s breath was right on his ear, shaky and raw.

“What would you know?” he practically snarled, exhibiting far more vitriol than Shiro ever would have thought he could possess. In fact, if it wasn’t for the way his voice broke at the end, Shiro might have processed the words as a threat.

As it was, it was just frightening and, quite frankly, a shock to the system that Shiro hadn’t known he had been missing. Stunned, he held Lance just a little bit closer, slowing his pace to a steady stride rather than a half-jog. “Lance, what are you--”

Just like that, the spell was broken. 

Making an aborted gasping sound, Lance stiffened in Shiro’s arms, his face hidden from view and arms shaking with strain. He shook his head roughly, dizzyingly, and fell abruptly silent.

There was wet blood seeping into the cracks of Shiro’s armour, and the tremble that had enveloped Lance was beginning to transfer over to him, as well.

There was a time and a place for questions, and this wasn’t it. Shiro swallowed hard, and ran the rest of the way to the Green Lion.

\---

Cold. Quiet.

It was at times like this that Lance knew that he hated space.

The cryo-pod that held Pidge was eerily silent, just as it had been since Lance was released from his own nearly an hour ago.

Lance curled his knees tighter to his chest and dug his chin into the divet between them. His fingers clenched at his shins, bitten down nails scraping uselessly across rough denim. He wished desperately for the sound of rainfall, or wind, or ambient music.

He wished desperately for something to prove to him that Pidge was still alive and breathing, even in a sleep so deep that they couldn’t dream. Cryo-replenishers didn’t come equipped with heart monitors, not in the traditional sense, so it was quiet.

The castle hummed ever so slightly beneath the floors, vibrating in the walls and almost,  _ almost _ making Lance feel present in the moment.

His fingertips gravitated to his lips once more, already reddened and raw from anxious gnawing. Fresh pain sparked through him, but it was so numbing it was almost satisfying, so he continued.

Pidge was un-moving. The castle was asleep.

Lance was unsure if anyone in the castle was aware that he was awake. He had been alone when he had woken from cryo-sleep, with no one to catch his stumbling body (again) and no one to exclaim in happiness or relief. There had only been Pidge, and the chill that refused to leave his bones.

The castle slept, and with it, it’s inhabitants.

It was likely that Allura was awake, Lance had reasoned as he had crept through the halls in search of  a warmer change of clothes. Allura rarely slept when she could help it, too busy manning the helm and searching tirelessly for Galra un-occupied quadrants. Coran might also be awake, tinkering with something deep in the bowels of the ship or reading late into the night-cycle to chase any wayward nightmares away. Shiro might be awake for the same reason.

Pidge would have been awake.

Pidge should have been awake.

Lance bit down hard on the skin between his forefinger and thumb, grinding his teeth into his flesh until it ached and releasing a shuddering breath through his nose. He tucked his knees ever-closer to himself, folding in half and rocking back and forth. It was what Keith did to feel better. He hugged himself tightly, trying to feel the warmth that Hunk could give him that was pale and poor with arms so thin. 

Nothing helped.

His mind felt like static. Pinpricks of energy lit up random parts of his body, sending anxiety and nausea coursing through him in an unpredictable cycle of discomfort.

Pidge was so still. The suit they had been changed into masked the severity of their wounds, but Lance could not forget the sound of their rasping, wet breath at his ear. The sound of blood caught in an airway, and the quiet whimpers of pain that had forced their way up whenever Lance had jostled them a little too hard.

It was all his fault.

He was the drama machine, after all. The catalyst, the one who shouted the loudest and raised all of the fists in the room, only to have them all come crashing down upon him. But this time, the crash had not fallen upon him. 

His memories were fragmented at best, but although he struggled to find the exact reasoning for his blame, he knew it existed as much as he knew that he deserved the stinging pain in his hands and the tightness in his lungs. He should have done better. He should have protected them. He should have kept it cool and not gotten distracted by--- _ what was it he cant remember it was something bad wasn’t it? _ \--his emotions and he should have made Shiro proud and been someone worth calling himself a Paladin of Voltron and---

“Lance..”

Large hands gently pried his fingers from between his teeth, and Lance blinked, hazily surprised to find someone in his personal bubble. He looked up slowly, head heavy, and met Hunk’s worried cinnamon-brown eyes.

He was dressed in buttercup yellow pyjamas, the colour of his lion, and with his hair down he looked too soft to exist in the chill of space.

Lance’s lip wobbed, his eyes filling with tears, and Hunk spread his arms in a gentle but obvious invitation. Needing no further prompting, Lance fell into Hunk’s embrace.

He let his mind go silent.

Hunk gave the best hugs. He was the type of hugger to slowly settle into the moment, with all-enveloping softness that chased away any and all bad thoughts. Lance had spent more than one anxiety-ridden night at the Garrison in Hunk’s arms, petting the broad expanse of his back in exchange for Hunk’s strong, nimble fingers carding through his hair. It was a blessing then, when the only fears had been flight tests and expectations and the occasional hurtful misgendering.

Sitting beneath the still body of a teammate a million light years from home, it was a gift from the heavens.

Lance let his tears fall, and Hunk’s chest gladly absorbed it all.

“Hey...it’s okay, buddy..I’m here now,” Hunk murmured in his ear, rocking him ever so slightly and so warm that Lance felt he might melt. It wasn’t quite at the level of his mama’s hugs, but it came close enough to make his tears flow ever-faster. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up--I had this idea that if we expose the balmera crystal to the right environmental and biological frequencies, we might be able to adjust the temperature in here without bothering Coran or Allura..”

It  _ was _ slightly warmer than usual, Lance noted, and it wasn’t all because of the warm embrace he was held in. He made the barest amount of effort to let his best friend know that he was listening, humming quietly and squeezing him tighter. Hunk didn’t seem to mind; he was already talking about thermodynamics and adaptation at a speed and level of abstraction that made Lance’s head spin.

Sometimes it was hard being on a ship full of geniuses. It was even harder when he could barely muster the confidence to  _ begin _ to think that he belonged.

Hunk was warm, though, and the more that Lance listened, the more he understood.

..So, why were his eyes stinging even harder than before?

His chest hitched with a sob, cutting Hunk’s techno-babble off abruptly. He felt overwhelmed, suddenly, with everything that he couldn’t measure up to and everything that he had been pressing back for so long.

His anxiety and depression. His lack of self worth. His idolizing of Shiro, and even Keith, and how it tore him apart every day. How Allura couldn’t look at him without a distasteful curl at the corner of her lip. How Pidge didn’t take him seriously no matter what he did or how hard he tried.

How tired he was of being the fuck up, and how much he wished for longer, stronger fingernails that could dig in properly to the back of his neck instead of aching, dull and pointless and not sharp enough to draw blood, to do anything, to be worth anything at all.

The tears kept coming, and before he knew it, Lance was pulling at the hair on the back of his neck and gasping into the crook of Hunk’s neck.  "J..Just once, I want..I want someone to take what I say at face value," he said, the crack in his voice impossible to ignore even as muffled as it was. "I..I want people to look at me and not think I'm stupid, or a..a novelty, or..or something to be pitied.

“Just...just the _ once _ , I want people to want me around, and not just have to deal with me. I don’t want to be a f-fuck up,"  Lance was shaking, forcing breath after shallow breath into his tight lungs, and Hunk’s hand was rubbing up and down his back in firm, soothing arcs. It helped, but just barely. He couldn’t get Shiro’s disapproval from his mind. He couldn’t forget the wet sound of Pidge struggling to breathe, or the weight of them in his arms. He closed his eyes and saw the look of terror that had breached their honey-brown eyes when they went down, boneless as a doll.

Lance swallowed the lump in his throat, tasting salt and snot and feeling absolutely worthless. “I’m..I’m so sorry, I..”

There was so much that he wanted to say, and so much more that lay clogged in his throat, refusing to  budge past the lump of tears that already occupied it. Frustration welled up inside him. He couldn't even apologize properly. Some paladin he was.

Hunk was a good friend; he held him close long after the last of his tears had dried.

\---

There was a knock at his door, firm and yet so polite it was almost hesitant. 

Lance knew at once that it was Shiro.

For a moment, he contemplated feigning sleep. Shiro would understand; he always did. Duty won over in the end, however, and it was with a sigh of resignation that Lance pushed himself from his bed and shuffled, bare foot and drowsy, to open the door.

As expected, Shiro stood just outside in the hall, shoulders set straight and confidant and hands held unassumingly behind his back. Lance raised a slow eyebrow, but Shiro’s casual demeanor did not shift in the slightest. If anything, it seemed to strengthen.

Shiro smiled, then, a tired and entirely honest thing that made Lance’s heart flip-flop in his chest.

“How’re you feeling, kid?”

Lance felt like he might throw up, but he doubted that was what Shiro wanted to hear. Drained of all energy, he trudged his way back to his bed and plopped down on the edge, curling his knees up to his chest in an attempt at some form of comfort. 

“Pidge nearly died. The mission was a failure. How do you think I feel?” uttered Lance, wishing that he could put some sort of emotion into the words. Humor. Regret. Rage. Sorrow. anything but this unfathomable emptiness.

“Yeah, that...that happened,” Shiro’s wince was as visible as his discomfort. A burning was left inside of Lance’s chest, but he made no protest when Shiro settled down beside him on his bunk, hands clasped tightly on his lap. The Galra-made arm produced a quietly metallic sound as its fingers rubbed together, fidgeting with something that Lance couldn’t see. Shiro took a deep breath, seeming to prepare himself, and Lance shrunk deeper into his folded legs as resignation overtook him.

This was it. This was where Shiro was going to rip him apart. This was where Shiro was going to make him talk about his feelings and insecurities and everything that made Lance who he was underneath his bravado, even if he had to tear it out of him word by word. This was where Shiro was going to say, ever so carefully, that perhaps he wasn’t cut out for this war, after all.

Lance swallowed back the violent urge to cry, feeling razor blades in his throat and a sickness in his stomach. He tensed when Shiro shifted beside him, fully expecting to be gently and cordially removed from team Voltron. If only he had gotten hurt instead of Pidge. Pidge was important, irreplaceable. 

Lance just wanted to go home.

“You know..” Shiro began from somewhere in Lance’s periferal, “You were wrong, before. I do understand what you’re dealing with. What you’re going through. I’ve been there; hell, I’m still there.”

That was worryingly cryptic. 

“..What do you mean.”

Shiro sighed, suddenly sounding both very young and tremendously old. “I mean things don’t always..go as planned. Plans mess up. People get hurt. Sometimes it’s no one’s fault, and sometimes one decision can change an entire sequence of events. Lance, what I’m trying to say is that it’s okay. You did your best..and kiddo? If your best wasn’t good enough this time, we just need to keep working hard to make that best  _ better _ . You have potential, Lance. You’re a smart kid. We don’t tell you enough, but you are.”

Lance’s eyes burned traitorously; he smothered them in his arms, shaking his head roughly. There was a limit to how many useless platitudes one could receive before they all became nothing but white noise.

He could feel himself crashing, harder than ever before. It was just so  _ cold _ in space. Finally, he forced the words out through numbed lips.

“I killed people. I-I mean. Galra. I mean I killed Galra.” It felt better to say it, almost, but before he knew it, Lance couldn’t bring himself to stop. Words poured like acid from his tongue, a never ending stream of damning. “They’re..I know they’re the enemy, and aliens, and they want to destroy  _ everything,  _ but..” Shiro’s hand was on his back, rubbing soothingly up and down. Lance choked on a shameful sob but didn’t pull away. “I k-killed someone, and it wasn’t even on purpose. I messed up, and then I freaked out. I lost it. Pidge was..was trying to help me when they got shot. It was all my fault..”

Hot tears ran down his cheeks, finally winning in a battle against pride. He smothered them ruthlessly, the fabric of his sleeves becoming damp and salty and cold.

Shiro was quiet. The bedsprings creaked as he shifted, and in the corner of his eye, Lance saw his straight-backed postured crumble.

“..I’ve killed people too, Lance,” Shiro said softly, his voice so far away and yet impossibly close. “I’ve watched my friends be taken away from me..I’ve failed to protect so many people. People who trusted me to keep them safe. People in..in the arena. They’re all people, Lance, and they didn’t deserve to die.”

His throat clogged up, Lance stared down at his folded knees, suddenly overwhelmed with hopelessness. Shiro wasn’t finished. Lance wasn’t sure if he was even talking to him at that point, or if Shiro was armpit deep in memories he regretted regaining.

“The only thing that kept me going..” Shiro swallowed harshly, and when he spoke again, his words came out harsh. Haunted. “..the only thing that made it worthwhile was knowing that I didn’t deserve to die, either. It was something i had to do. Something I was  _ forced  _ to do. Every Galra ship we destroy, every convoy and every base..we don’t have a choice. It’s war.”

Shiro sucked in a long, shuddering breath, and Lance stiffened up even further, terrified of turning and seeing tears upon his leader’s face.

“...You don’t have to be sorry, Lance. I’m the one that should be sorry. I dragged you kids into this...this  _ clusterfuck _ of a war, and you didn’t have a choice.”

They were child soldiers, Lance thought suddenly, and wanted to scream. Injustices that humanity had fought against for centuries, only to have them thrust upon them like it was some righteous quest. They had all just wanted to explore new worlds. To make a difference. To boldly go where no one had gone before. 

Allura’s distressed face flashed before his eyes. Every averted look when they messed up a training sequence, every scowl at childish complaints, every ounce of backtalk that added to the stress beneath her eyes. It mirrored the way that sometimes, Coran couldn’t bring himself to look at them.The way he held them at arm's length, even after months of time together, months of storytelling and gentle words of encouragement. The way that he refused to call them by their names, too used to the come-and-go play of loss that was war.

None of them had asked for this.

“I..” Lance’s voice broke in a sob, “I just wanna go home, Shiro.”

“I know.”

A jolt of hysteria rushed through him. Lance let out a high pitched bark of a laugh, finding absolutely nothing in the situation funny but needing desperately to regain control of himself. He sobered almost immediately, however, his lips twisted in a tearful grimace. “I can’t be the reason my friends get hurt. I can’t..watch them die for me.”

A sigh, bone deep and weary.

Lance choked on his breath when Shiro pulled him to his side, losing his grip on his knees and letting them drop to the floor. It was remarkably easier to breathe when he wasn’t curled in a ball. Belatedly, he realized he was lightheaded. He tasted salt.

“Pidge isn’t going to die,” said Shiro firmly. Lance sniffled pathetically but said nothing, biting back the manic itch beneath his skin. Shiro squeezed him tightly. “You had a nasty shock, and it was a close call, but it’s okay now. It’s okay, Lance. You’re safe. Pidge is safe.”

For now, Lance thought, and let himself collapse into Shiro’s embrace. He hid his face in Shiro’s shoulder, trying to stop himself from shaking apart. A warm hand ran up and down his back, sending comforting tingles down his spine.

He felt naked. Exposed. Rubbed raw and spread much too thin.

Somehow, it made space feel just a little less empty.

They sat like that for a long time, long enough that the lights above them dimmed with disuse and the castle began to hum in preparation for the morning cycle. 

It was warm.

“..Hey,” Shiro coughed suddenly, voice hoarse from disuse. His body shifted, and Lance whined with displeasure as his source of comfort was disrupted. Shiro laughed. It was quiet and barely there, but the sound warmed the room like nothing else could. “I had Coran fix something up a couple of weeks ago, and I thought you might be interested.”

Lance snorted, unable to help himself. “..It really sounds like you’re offering to sell me drugs. Say no, Shiro. Be strong.” 

Shiro chuckled and nudged him gently, prompting Lance to sit up away from his comforting warmth. He rubbed at his eyes, trying in vain to destroy all remnants of tear tracks from his skin.

“You wouldn’t be wrong,” said Shiro unexpectedly, and before Lance could comment in surprise, he extended his left hand and opened it, showing Lance..

He had no idea what it was.

“Uh…” Lance grinned nervously, disappointment and confusion warring within him. “..It kinda looks like a condom. I know I hit on you a lot, but, like..”

“Lance!” Shiro protested with a scowl, a blotchy flush coming to his cheeks that made Lance’s eyebrows skyrocket to his hairline. “It’s not a condom. Gross. Honestly, you’re like fifteen.”

“Hey, I’ll be eighteen in July, thank you not very much!” Lance shot back, distracted by the little plastic-wrapped square in Shiro’s hand. Come to think of it, did months even count in space? “If you’re not trying to seduce me with your manly wiles--”

“Lance, _ please.” _

“--then what in the name of holy mac-and-cheese is that?”

Shiro smiled.

“It’s a hormone balancer, based off of the one I had implanted under Zarkon’s command,” his smile faltered into a displeased grimace at that, averting his eyes from Lance’s stunned stare, “..Turns out, the Galra like their fighters to be in, uh..optimal condition. So when I started to go on withdrawal from testosterone imbalance, they made sure to ‘correct’ that. The witch was pretty thorough with her research.” 

Mistaking Lance’s gobsmacked expression for one of horror, Shiro hurried to continue, curling his fingers protectively around the little patch. “This is much more advanced, though, and I promise, it’s nowhere near as invasive! Unfortunately it means that you’ll have to have it replaced every month, but I think that’s a small price to pay for painless access to HRT.”

When Lance still neglected to say anything, Shiro let out a huffing breath that was almost as anxious as Lance felt, and it snapped him out of his shock.

“You..you made that for me?” Lance said haltingly, searching Shiro’s scared face with a sudden hunger that was overwhelmingly bittersweet. A thought occurred to him all of a sudden, and he perked up even further, leaning into Shiro and staring with wide eyes the colour of a stormy sea. “..Is there enough for Pidge?”

Shiro’s nervous expression melted into one of relief, and then slowly morphed into a canny smirk that made Lance’s heart soar.

“There’s enough for all three of us, and more, kiddo.”

\----

“So,” said Pidge around a mouthful of food-goo, “You gonna tell Keithy boy what happened in training, or do we  _ really _ have to talk about me getting shot?”

Lance inhaled sharply enough to nearly swallow his spoon, emitting a sound like someone wringing the neck of a rubber chicken.

Keith scowled. “No one wants to talk about you getting shot,” he said, shoulders up to his ears and arms crossed tight to his chest.

“Yeah, c’mon, Pidge,” Hunk said with a grin, thumping Lance on the back until he stopped choking, “Give the guy a break; he’s still emotionally compromised from having to turn down Shiro’s advances of rooooomance.”

The squeak that Lance released was, somehow, even more dramatic than his excessive choking. “It’s not like that!” he blustered, waving his hands around and nearly clocking Keith in the nose with his spoon. “I got the wrong idea! He just gave me a balancer that basically works like freaky alien HRT and I  _ thought _ it looked like a condom, and what was I supposed to think? He was sitting on my bed,  _ stop laughing, Pidge!” _

Pidge just laughed harder, getting food goo all over their pyjamas, and really, no one in the room wanted to stop them. It was much preferable to the silence of the cryo-pod.

“HRT? Like, hormones?” Keith cut in, leaning forward on the table and nearly putting his elbow in a puddle of goo. He frowned deeply, staring at something on the far wall. Lance could practically see the gears in his head turning, and if he wasn’t stuck still with anxious anticipation, he might have laughed. 

A light went on behind Keith’s eyes, and he sat up fully, smacking his fist into his open palm in epiphany.

“You’re trans,” he said, sounding much too proud of himself. Lance wanted to die, mortification swelling up in him, but then Keith continued, sounding honestly curious, “Like Shiro, or like Pidge?”

Lance’s mouth clicked shut.

Hunk snickered. Pidge’s face was bright red behind their clasped hands, their cheeks puffed out in an effort to stay quiet.

“Uh...like..like Shiro,” Lance finally managed to eek out, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under him. “I mean, I’m, uh, I’m a guy. I’m Lance.”

Keith hummed in satisfaction, apparently happy to be correct. “And in training…..?”

Pidge abruptly lost their battle of wills and errupted into guffaws.   “Lance was..was being stupid and training with his binder on. That’s all..! Shiro beat the shit out of him, as usual--”

“Holy cheese, Pidge, language---” squeaked Lance, covering his reddening face with his hands so he was peeking out behind his fingers.

“ _ And _ , long story short, Lance’s puny ribcage decided to say ‘hey, fuck you, you inconsiderate fuck,’ and crapped out on him when Shiro power kicked him in the chest.”

“You’re killing me,” bemoaned Lance, sagging against Hunk in over exaggerated agony. “My sweet summer child. My little watermelon seed. So new to this world and yet so corrupted by this foul language.”

“Shut the fuck up, Lance.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” said Keith, speaking up suddenly enough that they all turned to look at him. He didn’t waver under their stares. “You could have really hurt yourself. Shiro,” Keith hesitated visibly, and Lance could see his thoughts rolling about in his mind. “..Shiro must have been worried.”

“Yeah,” Lance huffed out, laughter colouring his tone, and he finally let himself relax. “He really was.”

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that concludes BS(SIL)!
> 
> I want to apologize for how long this chapter took to come out, since I left you guys on a HUGE cliffhanger. There was so much I wanted to address in this, that I felt as though I couldn't rush it, even a little bit.
> 
> Special thanks to Lnxlover and theashie23 for inspiring me to keep writing~!
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with me until the end of this instalment, and don't worry, this series isn't over yet! There's still a LOT that this team needs to address~
> 
> Next up: Keith is not as unobservant as everyone thinks he is.


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